Question

I was just implementing a crude functionality using jsf+richfaces and came across this situation, so putting this to the open forum for some answers.

I have a text field and rich:dataTable inside a form. When value changes in textField, table data is populated and table is supposed to be reRendered with latest data.

Now the point in question : What if I have rendered condition on dataTable saying render this table if list of values is not-null/non-empty? So for the 1st time when screen appears, list is null/empty and hence table is not rendered, as and when I modify textField, values are populated and reRender on table is fired but as a whole table does not exist.

Is there a way to solve this behaviour? If I reload the page, yes table definitely appears 🙂

Here is the sample code for this :

    <h:form id="userSearchForm" prependId="false">
        <h:inputText value="#{ldapSearch.searchString}">
            <a4j:support event="onkeyup" ignoreDupResponses="true" ajaxSingle="true" reRender="usersTable"
            requestDelay="50" actionListener="#{ldapSearch.searchUser}"/>
        </h:inputText>
            <rich:dataTable id="usersTable"
                rendered="#{not empty ldapSearch.users}"
                value="#{ldapSearch.users}" var="user">
                <rich:column sortable="false" label="Name">
                    <f:facet name="header">
                        <h:outputText value="Name"/>
                    </f:facet>
                    <h:outputText title="#{user.displayName}" value="#{user.displayName}"/>
                </rich:column>
            </rich:dataTable>
    </h:form>

Answer 1

I solve this issue by surrounding the dataTable with some component that is always rendered, and then reRendering that component instead. For example:

<h:form id="userSearchForm" prependId="false">
    <h:inputText value="#{ldapSearch.searchString}">
        <a4j:support event="onkeyup" ignoreDupResponses="true" ajaxSingle="true" reRender="divUsersTable"
        requestDelay="50" actionListener="#{ldapSearch.searchUser}"/>
    </h:inputText>
    <s:div id="divUsersTable">
        <rich:dataTable id="usersTable"
            rendered="#{not empty ldapSearch.users}"
            value="#{ldapSearch.users}" var="user">
            <rich:column sortable="false" label="Name">
                <f:facet name="header">
                    <h:outputText value="Name"/>
                </f:facet>
                <h:outputText title="#{user.displayName}" value="#{user.displayName}"/>
            </rich:column>
        </rich:dataTable>
    </s:div>
</h:form>